Close Encounters of the Furred Kind, Part II - Stinky Sleepy Buffalo(s)

Many people have likely seen the video of a guy in Yellowstone approaching a male bison near the road. If you remember, when he got too close, the bison charged, lowered his head, and flung the tourist high in the air.

Those signs not to approach the wildlife in national parks are there for a reason.

I have been in similar shoes as that Yellowstone visitor twice, albeit by complete accident. Here are the memories of my two bison encounters.

1. Wind Cave National Park, summer 2005

My coworker Halle and I were charged with the task of monitoring cavity-nesting birds using a small camera, attached to an extendable pole, which could be hoisted and inserted into the trees and the woodpeckers' (or bluebirds') nests. The telescoping pole to which the camera was attached was about 5 feet long and probably 20 pounds, and we also had to carry the battery in a fanny pack which also weighed another 15-20 pounds. When you imagine the types of terrain we were traversing to get to these nests - snags on burned hillsides or rocky outcrops choked with shrubs and deadfall - hauling these things around could be pretty tiresome.

Wind Cave National Park boasts a bison herd, among other things (like the caves); and, like most other herds remaining in the West, the herd was restricted to the bounds of the park by cattle guards and barbed-wire fences. A few nests in Wind Cave were most easily accessible from a road that approached through national forest land to the western edge of the park, and we had to hop the barbed-wire fence to get in.

One particularly hot day during our summer 2005 field season, I was carrying the telescoping pole with camera attached, and Halle followed behind carrying the battery and data sheets. We hopped the fence and proceeded to the first of the nests. We had to "peep" - or check with the camera - each nest twice a week, and by this time we were pretty familiar with the locations of all of them. Thus, I didn't even really need to watch where I was going, but instead looked at my feet to avoid tripping on logs or rocks, with the pole of the camera slung across my shoulders.

I hadn't gone far from the fence when I heard Halle say, quietly but urgently, "Rebecca - stop." I stopped dead in my tracks and lifted my gaze up from the ground, and saw 15-20 feet in front of me a large male bison lying on the ground. I would have walked right into him if Halle hadn't stopped me.

Luckily, this bison apparently wasn't feeling especially feisty, and he remained where he was as Halle and I slowly retreated back to the fence. We crossed back over, walked a few hundred feet downhill, and crossed again, approaching the nest from a different direction to avoid the lazy bull. He was gone when we returned. If it had been a few weeks later (when the rut began), or perhaps cooler, we may not have gotten off so easily.

2. Yellowstone National Park - September 2007

Justin and I were hiking to some grizzly bear locations along a creek called Beaverdam, along the southeast arm of Yellowstone Lake. Having been dropped off at Terrace Point (the lovely locale which comes into many stories, where departure from the boat involves ramming into a rock jutting out from the shore, hopping quickly off the bow, and getting the boat pushed back before the waves dashed it to pieces against the rock), we headed south along the Thoroughfare Trail until it swept east away from the lake.

As we hiked to the GPS locations we were to investigate, Justin jokingly warned that following behind him that day might not be wise - apparently he had eaten some beef jerky that had not agreed with him, and the consequence could very possibly involve the generation of less than pleasant odors. Luckily I didn't notice anything along the hike, and we completed our task quickly and headed back to Terrace Point.

The Thoroughfare Trail, after sweeping south along the Lake for several miles, curves east to avoid a swampy delta at Beaverdam Creek. Where it curved, it cut along a steep hillside, and the grade and curvature cut off the view of the rest of the trail where it followed the shore. Basically, it was a blind corner.

As Justin and I approached this section of trail and prepared to depart the creek and head along the lakeshore, our view of the northward trail cut off by the hillside, I caught a whiff of something decidedly unpleasant. Justin was in the lead, and I took a few seconds to think of a clever quip to embarrass him; but I never got the chance to say it.

Humans aren't the only creatures to use the Yellowstone trail system. Out of nowhere, a huge male bison marched around the corner straight toward us, probably 20-30 feet away. (Apparently a bison's odor can be compared to beef jerky-related flatulence.) Justin and I didn't have much time to react, so we quickly jumped off the trail and climbed up the steep hillside. We watched from above as the bison slowly continued his trek, completely nonchalantly; if he had seen us (and he most certainly had), it didn't seem to bother him at all.

It kind of reminded me of pulling over on a narrow road to let a bigger vehicle pass. After he had passed, we moved on, boarding the boat again at Terrace Point and heading back to camp. I had thought the rut was on, and that it was odd for this big male to all alone (and quite good-tempered) at this time of year.

I told Justin later that I thought he smelled like a bison.

The Longest Day

When: October 2007
Where: Yellowstone National Park, west of West Thumb

Toward the end of the season, we were on our last set of bear tracks to follow before the collars were programmed to drop off. We had finished most of the bears, so one of my last weeks on the job, we decided to team up (usually we worked in three pairs of two people) to tackle a particular bear's data. There were quite a few we needed to visit, and they were all somewhat far in the backcountry on the west side of West Thumb, north of the main road that headed from West Thumb to Old Faithful.

So, five of us (minus Shannon, who lived in Livingston and was home with her husband) headed out early in the morning to start: me, the two guys (Justin and Gabe), Jenn (the boss), and Caryn.

We knew it would be a long hike in, and we hoped to arrive at the first set of points before 11:00 am so we could have a few hours to collect the data and still make it back to the truck before nightfall. Things went well at first; the first part of the trip was through a logdepole forest, fairly flat, following a small stream that eventually led us into a broad, wide meadow.

We could see for quite a distance in this meadow, and the best part was that the entire length of it went directly where we needed to go. It meant easy walking - no deadfall and no topography.

Not long after we left the trees and started the trek across the golden grassland, I noticed something dark in the distance, directly in our path in the meadow, just before the open space appeared to plunge back into thick forest - probably half a mile, maybe more, from where we were. I kept my eye on it as we got closer. From this distance I figured it was probably a downed tree, or maybe even a moose. It was large, whatever it was.

Time passed and we continued to move toward the edge of the meadow, toward the unknown dark object. We were making good time, laughing, trying to keep the boys from outpacing us girls too badly. When we did our two-person hikes, Justin and Gabe were hardly ever paired together - apparently the two guys constantly (albeit subconsciously) competed with each other with regard to their pace, and both were too stubborn to say anything about it; and so they would return to camp absolutely exhausted at the end of the day.

When we were perhaps 200 yards or so from the edge of the meadow - and the mysterious dark object - a slight movement made me instantaneously freeze and call out, "Hey!" and instinctively fling out my arms to stop the people walking beside me. Simultaneously, Gabe pointed; he had also been keeping an eye on it. The dark object apparently had a head, which it had raised as we got closer. Everybody had halted. We stood abreast, waiting for the thing to make another move, mostly so we could tell what it was and where it planned to go (the latter part considerably more important once we figured out the former).

We didn't have to wait long. After regarding us for a short moment, the thing stood up, raised its enormous bulk onto four squat, but very powerful, grizzled brown legs, turned around, and loped into the trees just behind it.

There was no doubt that this enormous beast was the hugest grizzly bear any of us had ever seen in Yellowstone.

And it had run directly along the path that we were hoping to take.

Not to be deterred, we consulted our topographic maps and decided to veer right and make a wide loop around where the grizzly had entered the forest. It would definitely add some distance to our route, but it seemed wisest to give the bear a wide berth. It was, after all, not just a grizzly bear, but a huge grizzly bear.

We picked up the pace, knowing that our nightfall deadline was now slightly in jeopardy with our longer walk. Jenn recalled the few moments it had taken for the bear to get up and move after it raised its head to look at us. Counting us, she said. "One, two, three, four, five...OK, I'm outta here," she narrated. I think we were glad we hadn't stuck to the two-person regime this time. An appetizer for a bear like that (if bears regularly ate humans, that is).

By the time we reached the first set of GPS points, our 11:00 am deadline had come and gone. We needed to hustle. There were 2-3 points to investigate within a relatively short area here, but another point lay almost a mile further, through considerably less friendly terrain - older forest, which meant lots of undergrowth and decaying deadfall, not to mention bigger, steeper hills.

Because of the time crunch, we decided to split up. Jenn delegated Justin and Gabe - the competitive, stubborn, tough guys - to race over to get the further point as fast as they could, while she and Caryn would stay behind and collect the data for the points here. But what would they do with me?

I knew what the answer would be. I pride myself in keeping in shape by exercising regularly when I'm not in the field, so once I had gotten used to the altitude and the considerably greater energetic demands for this job, I found that I was able to keep up with Justin fairly well (though I had never been paired with Gabe). I was usually faster than Jenn, Caryn, and Shannon.

Thus, Jenn assigned me to accompany Justin and Gabe on their race a mile through the forest, so that the data collection there would go faster.

The race began. Maybe I could keep up with Justin, but I certainly couldn't keep up with the pace created by the subconscious man-contest going on between him and Gabe. I was practically running to keep up with them, stubbing my toes on half-hidden rocks and fallen limbs, being poked by spruce limbs and dead aspen branches, desperately trying to keep the boys in view since Justin had the GPS unit.

I've learned that, in terms of tiredness and soreness, hiking long distances and steep hills does not really bother me at the end of the day. What hits me hardest, and causes the most harm to my body, is speed.

By the time we reached the GPS point, my knee (which I'd had surgery on long ago, but which still occasionally caused me some pain) was extremely sore. While Gabe ran around the point looking for evidence of what the bear was eating, Justin filled out the data sheet, and I found a big scat pile and collected some samples. When I guessed I had maybe 30 seconds to spare before we departed, I hurriedly removed my boot and slipped my knee brace over my knee. I had never used it in Yellowstone before now, but had a feeling today's long hike might require it, so I packed it just in case.

Then we were off. Again. The boys raced ahead, and again, I nearly had to jog to keep up. My knee felt better with the brace, and I picked up a makeshift walking stick to help keep my weight off it on the downhills, but I still lagged behind. Once or twice the boys had to stop for a few seconds to wait for me.

We didn't go directly back the way we had come, but veered further south, planning to meet Jenn and Caryn at the meadow, almost exactly where we had seen the bear. I don't remember much of the trip there, but I remember we would be coming into the meadow passing through the exact part of the forest into which the bear had fled. I was too exhausted to be too terribly concerned with meeting the bear, though the idea did encourage me to keep up so I didn't look like a weak straggler.

Eventually we made it. I may have been hoping that we would beat Jenn and Caryn into the meadow, so that I could have a few minutes to rest, but they were there waitung for us. However, I knew that being united again, and knowing that now we were heading home, would mean a slower pace. I limped and struggled along to meet them, while Justin and Gabe discreetly wiped the sweat off their foreheads, stifled their huffing and puffing, and pretended they weren't tired at all.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, I think; in any case, I don't remember much of it, but that might have just been because I was too exhausted. Nobody spoke much. I vaguely remember an incident when we were close to the truck - maybe somebody fell in the little stream as they tried to cross it - but my mind was focused on looking for the first glint of red that would reveal my glorious homebound chariot parked along the road.

Just before we reached the truck, Justin was walking beside me with his GPS unit. "I wonder how far we've walked," he said. He always kept the track log on, so at the end of the season he could see exactly how much of Yellowstone he'd hiked through. I waited, curious but focused more on finding the strength to put one foot in front of the other, while he sifted through the GPS menus.

The hike would have been long to begin with. Then we had the original, unplanned detour around the bear which tacked on some distance.Then we had Gabe, Justin and my speedy foray further west, and the return trip. Most days, our hikes were about 5-10 miles in a day. All told, today's trip was about 22.5 km. Fourteen miles, off-trail, in the backcountry, in about 9 hours.

I slept very well that night.

Close Encounters of the Furred Kind

One of the joys of working out in the wilderness every day is the increased opportunity for stumbling upon wildlife. I have had several interesting and/or exciting (and unexpected) encounters with wild creatures. I'll start with the most recent.

Part 1: Here, Kitty

Location: outside Boulder
Date: Last week! (summer 2010)

The purpose of my job with mountain lions along the Front Range is to walk in to GPS clusters to see what the lion was doing there. The GPS collars send the animals' locations to a satellite every 3-4 hours, and at the end of the month all the points are downloaded and analyzed in GIS to recognize and prioritize clusters of points. These clusters represent places where the mountain lion hung out for multiple satellite fixes, and most of the time this means the cat had killed something or bedded down. Since lions usually sleep during the day, we usually only visit the clusters that occurred at night, to maximize the chance that we'll find a kill.

Sometimes we can predict what the cougar killed; if it was there for a LONG time (multiple days), it probably means the cougar killed an adult elk or deer. As the amount of time decreases, it could mean we'll find the remains of fawns, elk calves, coyotes, raccoons, porcupines, or (unfortunately) domestic cats.

After we've downloaded all the points for that month, we spend the next month hiking in to the top priority clusters (selected randomly by the computer) of the previous month. So, in August, we were visiting locations the cougars went to in July.

By the end of August 2010, my boss Kevin and I had finished all the July clusters, and, well, we didn't have a whole lot to do until September 1. Kevin decided to have me do some pilot work on a possible project evaluating the detectability of kill sites as the time lag increases, and to start off, he wanted me to visit some really fresh kills. He downloaded the GPS locations of a particular female cat, found some good clusters that were made only three-four days previously, printed out some maps, and sent me on my way. He was certain the cat was gone from the area - the latest GPS point indicated she was many miles north, across several major highways - but I was sure to bring my bear spray, in case some hungry bears decided to scavenge on the carcasses.

The very first point was located just off a canyon road outside Boulder. It was only 100 yards or so above the road, but up some very steep hillsides. I parked the truck at a trailhead and decided to hike up the trail until I got to the right elevation, then hike back toward the highway to reach the potential kill site.

It was about noon. It was hot, and the sun cast deep, dark shadows under the large pines. After hiking the trail for about five minutes, I turned 90 degrees to the south and began to search for the kill. The first GPS location, somewhat separated from the rest of the cluster, was on the way. I stopped at the point but there was nothing there - no sign of a bed, scat, scrape, mound, or anything. I continued south toward the bigger cluster.

Our nifty GPS units are pretty high-tech, and have ArcPad installed so we can see exactly where we are in relation to the rest of the GPS points, in addition to a pretty exact measure of the distance yet to go before arriving at a selected location. As I approached the nearest cluster point, I began looking around for bones, fur, or areas of crushed grass where the prey could have been brought down before being dragged to the cover of a bush or tree. The area was very open; there was little undergrowth, no deadfall, no boulders - just mature pine trees and a floor of soft brown pine needles.

The GPS unit indicated I was about 15 meters away. I had been alternating my gaze between the screen of the GPS unit, the shadows of the trees around me, and the ground just before my feet to make sure I didn't trip over roots or rocks. I shifted my gaze to the black shadow of a huge tree just in front of me about 15 meters - exactly the right spot indicated by the GPS unit - and noticed a shallow depression at its base. In the shadows, I perceived a large shape there; perhaps a rock, or maybe the body of an elk calf or deer. Bingo. Right?

Slowly, my eyes adjusted. The mass in the shadows began to take shape. I'm not sure which part I noticed first, or if it all came together at once in a flash of recognition. A thick body, rear lost in the shadows, perhaps the hint of darker spots. Two dark eyes. A dark nose. A round face, with a white snout outlined in a black that matched the spots above its eyes and on its cheeks. Dark ears, laid sideways - not backwards, as you'd see in an aggressive animal, but sideways, the way the ears look when a cat is trying to remain hidden, like when stalking its prey.

My pace never faltered, but it shifted. I walked west, exactly 90 degrees from the way I had come, not wishing to turn my back on the animal but not wishing to come any nearer. I kept my eyes on it. Was it a bobcat? No. The face isn't right.

It was a cougar. A young one, from what I could tell - it was slightly bigger than a bobcat, and covered in dark spots. I had come within 15 meters and it hadn't moved an inch - just stared at me, hoping I wouldn't see it. Doing just what Mom had trained it to do.

I returned to the truck, sliding down along the steeper hillsides beside the highway, and called my boss as soon as I'd gotten in cell phone range. He didn't answer, so I left a voicemail.

"So, Kevin, I got here to the cluster, and, well, I hope you don't mind, but I decided not to investigate it. Because, ummm, you see" - pause for effect - "therewasacougaronit. Bye!"

When he called me back, he told me that it's common for older kittens to be left at kills while the mother goes off and hunts for the next dinner. When she's successful, she'll come back and pick up the kittens, and take them to the new kill. Apparently this kitten - and perhaps others that I didn't see - were just waiting for her to come back.

I was glad my gut reaction to encountering a cougar in the field wasn't to run.

I was also glad that, not a minute previously, while I had investigated that lone point some distance away from the rest of the cluster, I had decided to take out my bear spray and hold it in my hand. Just in case.

Saved by the Little Yellow Telemetry Plane

Date: October 2007
Location: Yellowstone National Park

When tracking wildlife, it is often necessary to use an airplane to locate a radio-collared animal. I myself hate doing this. While I am fortunate enough not to feel the need to lose my lunch during the tight circles necessary for homing in on a critter, I just can't convince myself that a sudden gust of wind or a seemingly inevitable mechanical failure won't send me hurtling thousands of feet down to my death. Humans were given legs for a reason - walking, and stepping on gas pedals. I prefer transportation involving constant contact with solid ground.

To each his own, however; aerial telemetry remains an important part of wildlife biology. In Yellowstone, when I worked for six weeks studying grizzly and black bear food habits, a man named Steve contracted his services in his bright yellow telemetry plane to track our collared bears each week. Once he heard the signal, dual antennae on each wing guided him toward it, and a tight circle once immediately above the animal would confirm the location.

The collars these bears carried collected GPS locations of that bear every half hour, and during his flights Steve could download all those locations remotely, just by flying over the animal. Then my boss would project those locations onto a map, and our job as technicians was to hike in to a random sample of locations to see what the bear was doing there. Most of the time the bears were grazing on vegetation, sleeping, or digging for mushrooms, but occasionally we found prey kills.

There was rarely any danger that we would stumble upon the bears themselves; the design of the sampling protocol ensured that at least two weeks had passed between when we landed on the bear's trail, and when the bear him/herself had made it. The home ranges of bears are quite large. Though there were undoubtedly uncollared animals near us at all times, and we took all necessary precautions (e.g. carrying bear spray, shouting "HEY BEAR" or talking very loudly to each other, not hiking alone), we certainly never expected to run into our collared critters.

On one occasion, our little boat the Silvertip (which also happens to NOT meet my criteria for preferred transportation, and so has been bequeathed a special kind of loathing from me) dropped me and Justin (one of my bosses) onto a gravelly beach on the eastern shore of Yellowstone Lake. (As Yellowstone is a national park, docks are not common around the Lake. By "dropped off", I refer to the process of approaching the beach at full speed, hastily raising the prop, ramming the shore head-on while the lucky technicians leap as far off the bow as they can with all their gear, and the remaining crew pushes the boat back off the beach with long poles until the prop can be lowered again. "Picking up" was equally adventurous - and wet.)

Soon after landing on the beach, Justin used his telemetry gear to scan for the signal of the grizzly bear whose locations we were supposed to visit that day. Her signal came in loud and clear; she was still in the area, even though the locations were more than two weeks old. Because it is never smart to play hide and seek with grizzly bears, we decided to scrap the day's plans, reboard the boat, and head to some other sites. We would return to complete the task as soon as the bear had left.

A few days later, my other boss Shannon and I leapt off the boat onto the same beach for another attempt at this bear's sites. It was a sunny, warm autumn morning. She scanned for the bear, and this time the signal was very weak. We bid adieu to our comrades in the boat and headed east away from the shore.

The going was rough. Much of Yellowstone burned in 1988, and 20 years later many places were choked with thick deadfall or dense thickets of new lodgepole saplings. It made for very tricky backpacking. Though we only had to travel a kilometer or two, it took us quite a while to manuever around all the logs and clingy young trees. Resilient dead limbs reached up from fallen snags to gouge our shins at the slightest misstep. We were headed to Delusion Lake, and in this tree graveyard it seemed appropriately named.

Gradually, the logs thinned out and healthy, green trees began to appear as we moved out of the burn area. It was a relief to walk on more or less open ground again.

We were about 200 yards from the points we were to investiage, when in the distance we heard a familiar drone. As we continued to approach the locations, the drone became louder, and soon we could pick out Steve in his yellow plane away to the north and west. The closer we got to our destination, the nearer the plane seemed to be coming. At first we weren't alarmed, since there was still plenty of park lying to the east, in which one or more of our collared bears could be roaming.

Eventually we realized Steve would soon be flying right overheard. Shannon, who knew Steve well and even joined him periodically on his weekly flights to download the bear locations, thought maybe he had seen us in the sparse landscape and was doing a fly-by. Both of us smiled broadly and waved as the yellow plane roared over our heads.

Our smiles quickly faded as he turned the plane and began to circle.

Optimistic as ever, Shannon thought Steve was circling over us to say hello. We waited as Steve circled several times, our necks craning and our heads dizzy as we followed his progress. When he straightened out and continued east, Shannon quickly pulled out the telemetry receiver and antenna from her pack, just to make sure the bear wasn't close.

BEEP.       BEEP.       BEEP.

The signal came booming in. The low hills near the beach had evidently hidden the signal when we had scanned for her upon landing, but she was definitely here. The look on Shannon's face was enough to set me in motion immediately behind her as she made a beeline back the way we had come. She was even too worried to shout, the normal protocol for avoiding bears; she thought we were so close that our shouts might alarm and provoke the bear, rather than harmlessly warn it of our presence.

We hiked back through the deadfall, this time veering south toward a little stream that might provide an easier route to the beach. The hike was hard enough, but adding fear and haste made it all the more exhausting. After we had gone a few hundred yards, and the bear's signal was weak enough to assure us that we were far enough away, we stopped to rest. Slowly we picked the rest of the way back to the beach, sat on a low hill (perhaps the same one that had blocked the bear's signal), ate some lunch, and said nothing.

Faintly, we heard Steve flying in the distance, perhaps returning to Gardiner to land. After a while the boat returned and picked us up. In the end, we decided the bear was probably starting to den there near Delusion Lake, which would explain her constant presence there for multiple weeks. The field season was nearly over. Soon the bears' collars would automatically drop off and we would wrap up the field work by retrieving them, just as the first autumn snows arrived.

I still hate aerial telemetry, but on that day, I was grateful for it. Based on the strength of the radio signal, Shannon thought we had gotten within a hundred or so yards of that bear. Steve's arrival was the warning we needed, right in the nick of time.

Wolves in the Rain

Date: June 2008
Location: New Mexico

I'll start with what is probably my favorite wildlife memory of all, which took place while I was volunteering on the Mexican wolf reintroduction project.

A few weeks earlier, I had assisted with the capture of an adult female Mexican wolf in a fairly remote part of New Mexico. While we restrained her, fitted her radio collar, and took some measurements, another wolf in the woods howled and howled at us. We never caught a glimpse of it, but it stayed just out of sight in the trees for about an hour before its howling stopped. We monitored this newly collared wolf as often as possible over the next few weeks.

In June, the wolf's locations became more and more predictable - most of the times we located her from the plane or from the ground, she was in a particular canyon near her capture site. Though this wolf was not pregnant or lactating when we caught her, we thought maybe she was hanging out at a den or rendezvous site - perhaps the pups of another wolf in her pack.

And so, on a cloudy morning in June, I was given the task of hiking in to this canyon to get a visual.

It took about two hours to get to the entrance to the canyon. I had been there before, prior to capturing the female wolf, to look for tracks. That experience had been hellacious; I had tackled the canyon from the western edge, hiking down and crawling over boulders at the canyon bottom, hiking back up steep muddy hillsides to escape the boulders, and finding everywhere the unmistakable signs of not wolves, but bears. This time I was more prepared. Armed with topographic maps and a plan, I drove to the southern edge of the canyon where the hillsides were less steep.

Along the way, the radio signal of the collared wolf (whose assigned code name was F1115) had been coming in loud and clear. Before turning north to get to the entrance to the canyon, I pulled over and scanned with the antenna. Before me lay a valley with a river running through it, and a round, grassy hill devoid of trees stood just beyond, surrounded by higher hillsides green with new grass under the charred remains of what used to be a dense ponderosa forest. The hills had burned years before, and under the gray sky the snags were like grim sentries guarding the silent landscape.

The signal continued to get stronger, and my eyes bore into the drab hill before me to see if I could pick out the wolf from so far away. Suddenly a movement, a slight flicker of white, caught my attention. I grabbed my binoculars, and sure enough, there she was - F1115 strolling across the hill, with another wolf close behind, probably the same wolf who had been howling at us during F1115's capture. They were side-hilling, heading northwest into the canyon.

I waited a few moments to see if any more wolves were accompanying her, waited for her and her companion to disappear into the first fold of hills before me, and hopped into the truck. The road to the southern entrance to the canyon wound through some low hills before ending next to a cattle pond. There were several veins and entrances to the canyon, and I figured the wolves would remain out of sight, entering the vein that seemed to begin right where I had seen them walking. If I hurried, I could beat them to the supposed den site - where the various veins joined to form a broad, open valley - and watch what happened.

I quickly packed some gear - water, binoculars, camera, GPS unit, field notebook, and some trail mix - and headed into the canyon. I held the telemetry receiver and antenna, planning to monitor the wolves' progress as I sought to head them off. I hadn't gotten far before the boulders began collecting along the canyon bottom, so I headed up east to walk closer toward the top of the ridge separating the canyon veins. The going was fairly easy; here at the entrance, the hillsides were not very steep and there was hardly any undergrowth, just green springy grass and scorched young trees marching up and up. I was disconcerted, however, by the very fresh bear tracks present in the soft mud beneath the trees. Beside the large tracks marched tiny ones - a mother and cub. I had a pretty good view all around, since the vegetation was so sparse, so I hoped I would see them before they saw me.

The terrain beside me became more and more steep, and I saw the canyon bottom choked with boulders and dense shrubs. I walked along it for about a half mile, until again the slope relented and began to grow shallow again. I was approaching the valley where the supposed den site was. The vein in which I presumed the wolves were traveling joined the valley further north, but here the gentle hillside became cut by shallow gullies all leading to the valley. Before heading down, I listened for F1115's signal, which was coming in pretty weakly. Perhaps she had got wind of me, or the terrain was blocking the signal. I quickly entered the first gully and followed it down to the canyon bottom.

It was an idyllic setting. A little stream flowed through a lovely valley dotted with wildflowers, sparse boulders and a few big logs perfect for sitting on, and the trees in and around it had escaped the blaze. Maybe not enough hiding places for a den, but it seemed like a perfect place for a rendezvous site (sort of a "day care" for wolf pups).

I walked along the valley for half an hour searching for any sign of wolves; bones, scat, tracks, anything. I couldn't find a thing. I couldn't think of any reason these wolves were coming into this valley so often - if they had killed something here, I'd have found the remains, and if pups had been here, I was sure I should be able to see evidence of them. I even howled a few times, hoping to get a response from the pups if they were there.

I couldn't figure it out, so I did the obvious thing: I plopped down on a log, pulled out my trail mix, and had lunch in this perfect little valley. I listened to the stream gurgling beside me, swatted at a fly, and wrote some notes in my field book. F1115's signal was audible but still fairly weak, and decided to wait half an hour to see if they would come.

After a few minutes, the signal became louder, then weaker, then louder, then weaker again. They must be in the canyon somewhere, and the signal was bouncing around the high walls. I waited some more, until the signal began booming in loud and clear. They were here, somewhere. I waited and waited, not moving, not making any sound. It was hard to tell where they were; the signal was so strong it boomed in from all directions, but I believed they were west of me, right where I had been when I headed down into the valley. I strained my eyes for any sign of movement. There was no wind, and a light drizzle had begun to fall.

This lasted for quite some time. What was going on? Where were they? Had they seen me, and were just waiting for me to leave, or watching to see what I would do? I became impatient. Finally I decided my cover was blown, and they were up above me somewhere, completely aware of me. I threw caution to the wind and decided to hike west, back up to the top, this time hiking up the hill on the other side of the gully that had led me down, across from where I thought the wolves were. Maybe I could sit at the top and watch them when they decided to come down into the valley.

I was not cautious at all. I was sure they had seen me. The rain seemed to dampen the sound of my movements, and I headed hastily uphill, keeping my eyes to the adjacent hillside for any sign of movement.

Suddenly, I noticed a patch of white underneath a tree. I dove onto my stomach and inched my way to a big ponderosa for cover, and pulled out my binoculars. It took me a few minutes to realize what I was looking at, but there, curled against the trunk of a big pine, were the wolves. They were asleep, not 100 yards from me across the gully, right where I had walked before. They must have cut off the last few hundreds yards of their journey through the adjacent canyon, heading up and over the ridge to the valley below.

The next hour was one of the most wonderful of my life. There I was, lying on my stomach, watching two federally endangered wolves sleeping in the wild above the canyon, as a soft rain fell. I was thankful of my wardrobe choices that morning: earthy green fleece and brown curdoroy pants, blending in perfectly with the drab landscape. I couldn't believe that the wolves hadn't seen me - they seemed completely unaware despite my haphazard wandering.

There was F1115 with her collar, and the other wolf was much larger than she was. I assumed it was a male, still convinced it was the same companion howling at us from the trees during her capture. F1115 was very light colored, with hardly any red coloration, but the other wolf was very rusty. I could see his black lips curled into a grin as he slept. She slept more fitfully, lifting her head often to gaze around and smell the air. Once the bigger wolf jerked awake to snap at a fly, stood up, walked in a circle, and laid back down. He reminded me of a pet dog circling around on one of those big fluffy dog pillows.

I didn't dare get my camera; the Velcro would surely alert them to my presence. I wrote some notes in my field book, noting their behavior, their appearance. After about an hour, F1115 stood up again, but this time she began to move down the gully into the valley. The other wolf lifted his head to watch her go, but showed no immediate inclination to follow. I was torn between staying still to watch him, or repositioning to see where F1115 would go.

I had to know if there were pups down there. I stood up, trying to keep to the tree for cover, and watched as F1115 reached the valley floor and then, to my surprise, headed right back up the other side. I glanced over at the other wolf, who had finally stood and looked like he was about to follow; but I must have made a noise or a sudden movement, for suddenly he stood stock still, staring hard in my direction. Then he jumped high into the air, turned 180 degrees, and stopped again, still looking at me over his back. A few seconds later he was gone, diving into the gully after F1115.

I never figured out what they had been doing there. I can only guess that they had seen me down there, and were just nonchalantly waiting for me to leave. There must have been something there; why else would they wait for me to leave, rather than just take a different route? I couldn't follow them to the other side of the hill, because I knew at the top was grassy plains leading to private grazing land. I had scouted it before. Maybe there were pups in a hidden nook or rocky outcrop, but now that my cover was surely blown I decided to give up the chase. The last thing I wanted to do was spook pups, scaring the whole family onto open land where they were much more vulnerable.

As I walked back the way I had come, above the canyon through the scorched trees and soft grass, I felt elated. I heard thunder rumbling in the distance. I reached the truck just as a heavy rain began to fall and the lightning became more frequent.

Technically, I had failed in my mission, but I didn't feel too bad about it. I had been given an amazing show, shared an hour of peace and contentment with the napping wolves. They could keep their secret.